Dhaliwal students get a rare glimpse into mysteries of space

The faces of around 70 students at the Government Elementary School in Jalandhar lit up with wonder and delight on Saturday evening as a high-powered telescope was brought into the school grounds to acquaint them with planetary patterns, the moon, stars and the mysteries of the universe.

In the first such session held at a government school in Jalandhar, the organisation New Horizons — which conducts astronomy and night-sky sessions as well as a mobile dome theatre — set up the telescope to give the children an interactive astronomy lesson.

The initiative was organised through the efforts of Head Teacher Gurmukh Singh and staff of Government Elementary School Dhaliwal Dona. Students of Classes III, IV and V from Government Elementary School Dhaliwal Dona, as well as Class V pupils from Government Elementary School Mansurwal, attended the three-hour session held between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Using the telescope, the children observed the moon, different star groups and Saturn.

Head Teacher Gurmukh Singh said, “It’s the first time New Horizons, which has a tie-up with NASA, displayed such a telescope at a district school. We organise an educational tour every year to a special place — the students have earlier been to Science City. But this time they had the most educational three-hour session, where they were taught the A to Z of astronomy. They learnt how to find one’s way back through the North Star when lost, stars were shown through lasers and close-ups of the moon’s craters and Saturn’s rings filled them with wonder. Even for us, it was highly informative.”

Appreciating the effort for the children, Mamata Bajaj, DEO (E), Dr Balwinder Singh Battu, Deputy DEO (E), and Sanjeev Kumar Handa, BPEO Kapurthala-2, said Dhaliwal schools always took unique initiatives. They credited Gurmukh Singh and staff members Kiran, Jaswinder Kaur, Baljit Kaur, Manpreet and Parveet Kaur for their contribution.

Akashdeep Singh, Chairman of New Horizons, said the telescope used was “on par with the one NASA employs to collect information about the moon and stars.”